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Moses Herzog is the quintessential protean man.
This is a great book--watch those changes from first to third person within the same paragraph! Check out Robert J. Lifton's "Protean Self" for a complete analysis of how Moses Herzog is the quintessential protean man.(Proteus was the Greek god who could change form to suit his circumstances.) ... Read more

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Dr. Alan Severance wakes up one morning confined to a familiarhospital with no recollection of his arrival. Thus starts Recovery,Berryman’s semi-autobiographical tale of "the disease called‘alcoholism.’" This time, determined to free himself from hisdisease, Dr. Severance plunges into a rigorous plan forrecovery. Following the clinic’s advice he confesses his humiliations,defeats, and delusions in an attempt to purge himself and achievenormality. The novel is elevated above the ordinary by Berryman’ssharp wit and penetrating intelligence. An alcoholic and criticallyacclaimed Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Berryman jumped to his deathoff the Washington Avenue Bridge in 1972 in Minneapolis, abandoninghis own attempts to overcome alcoholism as well as the yet unfinishedRecovery. The resulting novel is a powerful portrayal of Severance’seternally indefinite attempts to free himself from the grip ofaddiction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This is treatment?
Philistine that I am, I am not surprised to find myself out of my league when reading great poets; so when the first few chapters of this book of prose seemed incomprehensible I began to feel, once again, in over my head. I continued to read, however, and slowly I was able to make sense of what I was reading as the abstract language of a sick artist fell away to reveala concrete human plight.Ironically neither this book nor John's recovery reached a conclusion, the book was published unedited by the author, posthumously - unfortunately John ended his life and his struggle with alcohol shortly after the events that inspired the book took place.I was horrified by the few lucid descriptions of what life is like in a treatment center, an asylum run by the inmates (former inmates), where the cure was browbeating and humiliating confrontation. Having struggled with alcohol myself, I am grateful that I never checked into one of these indoctrination camps.But then again I am an unqualified critic in denial!

Intriguing, self-lacerating, hopeful novel of victory over addiction
John Berryman was working on "Recovery" when he died, and in these pages there is hope of some ultimate victory over addiction. In the character of Alan Severance is the thinly-veiled personality of the poet himself, self-deprecating and perfectionist, attempting to overcome despair in a hospitalized addict's routine of recognition and confrontation. It is by no means an uplifting triumph to acknowledge that he got this far in the struggle -- but that he got this far, and then despaired, says much about the power of alcohol to ruin even the power of hope. This novel will change any romantic notions the reader may have about art and the role of drugs in the life of any artist. ... Read more

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For over forty years Saul Bellow has been writing fiction that denounces the destructive forces that have dominated the literature of this century--existential nihilism and historicist pessimism. In novel after novel--The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Humbolt's Gift, Mr. Sammler's Planet, and others--he has tried to restore the integrity of the private life, the value of human feeling, and the primacy of social contract, while proclaiming each individual's perennial access to age-old truths.

In this collection of interviews spanning the period from 1953 to 1991, Bellow elaborates further upon his fictional treatment of these ideas. Here the reader finds the wit and urbane commentary that typify this marvelous writer. He speaks with his interviewers of the changing role of fiction, the literary establishment, and the place of literature in modern life. Since no definitive biography of Bellow has yet been written, these interviews provide valuable insights into the writer that many argue to be the pre-eminent American novelist of the post-World War II era. ... Read more

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Talking about ideas
This book contains interviews spanning from 1953 to 1994, usually precipitated after the release of a novel, but topics range from the state of literature, to his own quest for understanding.For some of these, Bellow had a chance to review and edit the completed transcript, and the words are well crafted.There is some biographic info included (e.g., Dr. Goldenweiser assured him he wasn't cut out for science.His papers had "to much style"), but generally Bellow avoids the trapping of "cultural furniture", and it's gossip-like quality. The best of these conversations focus on ideas and novels.Many of the books contain autobiographical characteristics that comes out in the writing,as Bellow says, "My faults of character emerge in my writing". But when talking about Sammler, he warns that a character has his own logic. "I do not choose such a person for the purpose of expressing my own religious views". The two most biographical pieces are contained in "It all adds up", his book of non-fiction. The index is nicely done, and allows for easily finding material about a particular novel.

Bellow remains optimistic about the role of art in society "Maybe civilization is dying, but it still exists, and meanwhile we have our choice: we can either rain more blows on it, or try to redeem it".Although "What you call optimism may be nothing more that an mismanaged, misunderstood, vitality".There are interesting antidotes about Chicago, his beloved city, for example, when Mayor Daley presented Bellow a check, a reporter asked if he had read Herzog, Daley responded "I've looking into it". There is a fun piece with Gloria Steinman who spends a day in Chicago with him.During one interview he talks of writing a non-fiction book on Chicago, but that evolved into the "Dean's December. One of my favorite quotes is "I'm happy when the revisions are big.I'm not speaking of stylistic revisions, but revisions in my own understanding. ....Exceptional things must be attempted if the game is to be worth the candle".Other interviews are now available online. ... Read more

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Includes two novellas, "A Theft" and "The Bellarosa Collection", and the author's title piece story, "Something to Remember Me By". Originally published by "Esquire", it tells the tender and funny story of a young man's sexual initiation and guilt, one bleak Chicago winter's day in 1933. ... Read more

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Most critics consider Saul Bellow one of America's leading active novelists, but few of them agree in their interpretation of his work. Much of this disagreement, says Opdahl, is the result of misunderstanding, but much of it also stems from an unresolved conflict in Bellow's imagination. The novelist continually returns to the opposition between the willful and the loving, the skeptical and the believing. This conflict pervades Bellow's style, the structure of his novels, and the psychology of his protagonists; it is at once the unifying element of his fiction and the source of his difficulties. Although 'placing' Bellow on the current intellectual scene and discussing how this conflict reflects current intellectual and social issues, the author puts his main emphasis on the novels themselves. He studies the influence of this polarity on technique, explaining many of Bellow's shifts in form and substance, and analyzes how it shapes theme and plot. The novelist's ultimate purpose is religious: Religious issues and longing drive his heroes to rage, withdrawal, comic intensity. Viewed in this perspective, the formal problems of the novels disappear or are explained by Bellow's difficulty in achieving, expressing, and sustaining his vision. Offering perceptive interpretations of the novels as well as some of the shorter fiction, Opdahl presents a fresh view of Bellow's work and shows how he expresses the problems and doubts of our time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An utterly ingratiating game of hide-and-seek
Any reader seeking a conventional life of Saul Bellow will be sorely disappointed: this is largely a chronicle of Bellow ducking and weaving as his hapless Boswell tries to draw a bead on him. That said, "Drumlin Woodchuck" is an absolute delight. It's about the implausibility of biography as a genre, and about the difficulty of penetrating any life but your own (and sometimes that's a challenge as well). It's extremely funny, mostly at the author's expense. And while Harris never succeeded in writing the big-picture Life of Bellow he originally planned, this is a tremendously vivid portrait, even if the subject keeps scuttling out of view. Somebody, please, bring this comic gem back into print!

More about Harris than about Bellow
This is a kind of mixed-up book ostensibly about Saul Bellow and his work , but it seemed to me, more about Mark Harris and his. There is information about Bellow's life and also some analysis of his work. But I found this book to be one of the poorer efforts on the work and life of Bellow that I know. ... Read more

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The reviews and essays gathered in this volume bring into focus the different concerns and critical approaches to reading Saul Bellow over the last 50 years. The volume covers Bellow's entire career, from the late 1940s into the 1990s. Representative samples from the earliest responses to the most recent critical assessments allow the reader to view the different phases and approaches to Bellow's art over time. ... Read more

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In six dark tales Saul Bellow presents the human experience in all its presposterousness, poignancy and pathos. It includes "Leaving the Yellow House", "The Old System", "Looking for Mr Green", "The Gonzaga Manuscripts", "A Father-To-Be" and "Mosby's Memoirs". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

'The Old System' is one of Bellow's masterpieces
Of the six stories in this collection only one moves deeply and is truly memorable, " The Old System". I consider this to be one of Bellow's finest works and a true masterpiece. It is also I think his most deeply Jewish work , and one which he shows an understanding of American worlds and times in his own powerful distinctive idiomatically rich and specially perceptive way. Above all he creates the picture of a family of its relations and life, tells the story of an estrangedbrother and sister and their death- bed reconciliation with deep deep feeling.

Disconnection and Despair.
This is a thin book with six stories. If these stories can be said to have a common thread, it is the people who fail to ever make a real connection. The characters in the stories are aimless, seized by momentary ideas which fill the need for purpose and troubled by other people.

All of the stories were well written, but two for me really stood out. The first was "Leaving the Yellow House". This tells the story of a woman who has never succeeded at anything except that she managed to come to own this house. Faced with increasing infirmity, she can no longer care for herself but cannot bring herself to turn her back on her one success.

The second stand-out was "The Gonzaga Manuscripts", a story about a feckless young man (Feiler) who tries to recover a set of lost poems from 1950s Spain. He wants to find purpose in poetry, but his researches keep bringing him back to politics.

These stories are truthfully not among the best work of Bellow. However, you need to bear in mind that given how wonderful his writing generally is, they are still more than worth the time to read.

Unleavened Bread
Of these six short stories - written between 1951 and 1968 - it is easy tofind things to praise, difficult to find things to criticise. They are, allof them, dense, substantial, well-crafted, (highly?) intellectual, richlysatisfying. Why should one want to say anything against them? Well:'satisfying' - more, perhaps, in the manner of a cross-country run than araspberry souffle. 'Intellectual': perhaps too intellectual to avoid thecharge of monotonousness. All Bellow's characters are assiduouslyintrospective and intensely aware. In consequence, Bellow has perfected aprose style based upon the agglomeration of clauses rather than thesequencing of fully-formed sentences; a type of stream-of-consciousness.This can be as tiring as it is effective. More than this, Bellow'scharacters are always radically isolated people. They think, think, thinkand hardly do any interacting with other people (although they often thinkabout doing so). One never hesitates to say that Bellow, in these stories,is telling us the truth about man; one does hesitate to say that heentertains us with that truth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Direct, with a disconcerting finale.Be prepared to think.
For most of this novella, Bellow tells a story that appears to be going nowhere.The narrator, the child of Jewish immigrants who has become ionospherically wealthy selling memory-enhancement techniques, recalls two friends he last saw thirty years ago.

The narrator begins to tell the tale of Harry Fonstein, a Jew smuggled out of Fascist Italy by an underground organization financed by the Broadway producer Billy Rose.Rose refuses to hear Fonstein's thanks, and so his life is overshadowed by a cloud of gratitude he is not allowed to express.Until his wife Sorella decides to avenge Rose's treatment of her husband...

and then the narrator stops telling his story, because he hadn't seen the Fonsteins since.The final third of the novella raises difficult questions about memory and the duty to remember.Has the narrator's eidetic memory replaced actual relationship with the people he remembers?Is that memory even accurate?Has he in fact, failed to fulfill the whole point of memory, despite near-perfect recall of the actual facts?

This story lulls you in with an almost colloquial style and simple plot, and then ends that plot to force you to confront how easy it is to fail duties to friends and cultural identity.After its unsophisticated beginning, the final revelation is very disconcerting. ... Read more

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Pifer contends that Bellow's fiction is radical. Going against the grain of contemporary culture and its secular pieties, the novelist undermines accepted notions of reality and challenges the "orthodoxies" created by materialist values and rationalist thought. Bellow's ten novels actually test the assumptions of traditional realism—the genre with which his fiction is usually identified.

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